PSN Back Online

You heard it from us at Frost magazine – the Playstation Network is now back on line.

Although the Playstation Store still comes up saying, ‘currently undergoing maintenance’, all the other features appear to be working.

Yesterday (15th), we told you that you were able to download the latest update for your PS3 – version 3.61. Well, today you can get access to all your account information, including billing and card details, although we are sure that it won’t be long before the rest of the service is up and running

Attempting to sign in today brings up the password change request. There are no options to cancel this – you have to change it, although thankfully it doesn’t ask for the old password. After that, we recommend you head straight for account management and amend all the personal info as necessary. There is also an option for the password to be entered before any action is completed in the store like check out – which, while infuriating to some owners, is probably a wise option considering what information might have been stolen.

Sony were forced to close its network and implement new security protocol after the details of over 77 million users were stolen from their servers.

PSN Update

Earlier article

Sony today announced that friends lists and trophy data are unaffected by the PSN Network outage. The news will come as a big relief to gamers, some of whom have spent months and years building up their achievements. Sony has also said it hopes to have some parts of the network back up and running by May 3rd, that would be almost two weeks after the initial outage.

In another crumb of comfort for gamers Sony has said it will do something special for its customers for their, ’extraordinary patience’. It will have to be something momentous if they have any hope of turning around this PR disaster.

Currently Sony has found no evidence that credit card data has been stolen (data it claims was encrypted in contrast to other data such as names and addresses). The safest policy at this stage would be to check your bank statements for any unusual activity.

Sony may now face a large penalty fine from the UK information commissioner’s office for failing to secure customer information such as names and addresses. However, given the maximum fine is only £500,000, it is likely to be the least of the technology giant’s worries.

Speculation remains rife as to who was behind the attack. Currently the consensus view among experts is that major criminals are responsible, given its huge scale.

Original Article

2nd Update

3rd Update